Pity Is Not Enough

Josephine Herbst's neglect is an incredible injustice. She is truly one of the most perceptive novelists of the century. This volume is especially valuable for its insights into the motivations of a character trying to take advantage of rising capitalism in the reconstruction era. This is the historical novel as serious literature. The first in a trilogy about the Trexler family it should be ranked with Dos Passos' U.S.A. and Farrell's Studs Lonigan as some of the most insightful literature of the thirties.